A LIFETIME BEHIND THE LENS...
A LIFETIME IN AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE
Syl traces his roots in the green industries back through three generations of his family to the founding of the Arena Fruit Co. in 1888. As a youth, he spent many summers working on his father’s cotton farm west of Phoenix. His photography career started in fourth grade when he received a Kodak Brownie camera from his great-aunt.
In college, Syl studied commercial photography at Brooks’ Institute in Santa Barbara and then earned his BFA in photography from the University of Arizona. With a creative diploma in hand, he rejoined his father and managed the family’s farm for a number of years.
During the early 1990s, Syl and his wife, Amy, founded the Arena Rose Co. as a specialty source of unique roses. Many people are familiar with Syl’s photography and design work through the award-winning catalogs he produced for Arena Roses. In 2006, Syl left the rose industry to pursue a full-time career in commercial photography and publication design. His colleagues in horticulture did not let him stray far.
As a photographer, Syl recently completed portfolios for the introduction of two of the three roses selected as 2009 All-America Rose Selection winners. Many of the rose photographs featured on MarthaStewart.com were created by Syl. His photography has also appeared in books and magazines published on both sides of the Atlantic.
Syl employs state-of-the-art, purely digital workflows from image capture to final output. Pure digital is the best solution for photography that needs to be color-critical, tasked to a variety of media, or produced rapidly on your premises. As a photographer whose work has appeared in
Sunset,
Martha Stewart Baby and
The New York Times, Syl has the eye to get the shots you need – from a single frame to an entire campaign.
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

PERSONAL MILESTONES
- 1969 – Photography career started at the age of 8 when my great-aunt gave me a Brownie camera
- 1984 – BFA in Photography, University of Arizona
- 1986 – My first Mac (a MacPlus) had a whopping megabyte of RAM
- 1995 – Jumped on the Photoshop bandwagon with version 3.0
- 1999 – Catalog Age Silver Medal in Garden Catalogs
- 2003 – Shot film commercially for the last time / Workflow now entirely digital
- 2005 – PDN World In Focus Award of Merit
CONTACT
Syl Arena
Syl Arena Photography
2070 West Highway 46
Paso Robles, CA 93446
studio 805 / 226-2794
mobile 805 / 550-4514
fax 805 / 226-2893
email: studio at sylarenaphoto dot com (sorry you'll have to retype it -- we hate spam.)